Mayweather-Pacquiao brings in more than 4.4 million PPV buys

By Boxing News - 05/12/2015 - Comments

Floyd Mayweather vs Manny PacquiaoBy Chris Williams: Despite problems with the major cable companies on the night of the “Fight of the Century,” the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight has reportedly brought in more than 4.4 million pay-per-view buys in the United States.

Additionally, the revenue for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is over $400M with it likely to come in over $500 million when the tally is complete. The total has dwarfed the $150 million that the Mayweather vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight brought in back in 2013. That fight generated 2.2 million PPV buys. The 4.4 million buys breaks the record of 2.4 million that Mayweather set in his fight against Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.

The fight was televised on PPV by HBO and Showtime in the U.S. The gate was at $71 million for the fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“With all the aggravation and trouble, look at the pot of gold that we both produced,” Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum said to ESPN.com about the money that they brought in with the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. “I think there will probably be less aggravation in a rematch. We understand each other better now. There’s a real possibility it could work even better.”

Getting the two sides to work together for a second fight could prove to be difficult now given the injury excuse that Pacquiao came up with after the fight. Pacquiao also seemed in denial about his defeat, saying repeatedly that he felt that he won the fight. That stance from Pacquiao might need to change if there’s any chance of the two fighters facing each other again. It doesn’t work if Pacquiao uses his two-headed stance of staying he won the fight and then blaming his defeat on his shoulder injury, which he failed to inform the Nevada State Athletic Commission about until right before the fight.

The big money that they charged the fans to see the fight on PPV and live at the MGM Grand may need to change in a rematch. I don’t think boxing fans are going to go for the idea of paying $100 a second time to see a fight that will likely play out as another mismatch.

The fans might be receptive to paying that kind of green if the Filipino fighter were to win two or three fights in between the second Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, but that obviously can’t happen given that Mayweather is about to retire.

For that reason they may have to drop the price down to $60 for PPV and sell the tickets at reasonable prices in order to sell the fight a second time. You can’t gauge the fans with high prices a second time if the product the first time around was a poor one. Mayweather did his part to give fans a great fight, but unfortunately Pacquiao came up well short. The customers didn’t get a good product and now it’s up to the fighters to drop the price for a rematch so that the customers will come back.



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